In the art of computer-based speech and speaker recognition, particularly speaker identification and speaker verification, the processing of speech signals includes many demanding tasks including the reliable analysis and synthesis of speech signals. Speaker recognition is of particular importance in recent voice biometric systems.
Voice biometric systems are implemented for authentication of speaker in order to allow particular service or access to data and information processing means. Speaker verification is of importance in the context of telephone banking or voice-based business in general. However, the speech signals detected during the voice-based operation by a user may contain sensitive semantic contents that shall not be transferred from one processing unit to another one. For example, it may be preferred that a processing unit designed for speaker verification or identification is not provided with the full information included in speech signals corresponding to a user's utterances. Rather, for speaker verification purposes it is sufficient to pass processed speech signals to the verification unit that include all relevant original speaker information needed for speaker recognition.
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for speech synthesis wherein the synthesized speech signals include information necessary for speaker verification or speaker identification without disclosing the original semantic speech content.